Video Transcript
Fred Burton: Hi, I’m Fred Burton and I’m here today with Adriano Bosoni, our European analyst, to discuss the terrorist attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris this morning. Adriano, I know you were just recently in Paris. What were some of your unique observations?
Adriano Bosoni: Hello Fred. When you visit France, Germany, the Netherlands and many other European countries, you notice a very complex political context. You see there is a big debate going on over the role of minorities. You see that there is the rise of nationalist parties that target foreigners in general but mostly minorities in particular. You see that there is a big debate over the restitution of border controls within Europe and how to deal with the crisis of asylum seekers and refugees arriving to European countries from the Mediterranean and the Middle East. So today’s attack happens in a context of a very very politically charged social and political environment in Europe.
Fred: And I also thought it was fascinating when you brought up this morning at our analyst meeting your observations on the French police checking trains. Would you like to share that with our audience?
Adriano: Yes, a couple of months ago, I traveled to Paris from Frankfurt and I was surprised to see that after crossing the French border, French policeman came into the train and started asking for people’s passports. And this makes sense because what we have seen in the past months is countries trying to come up with measures to deal with the problems of nationals going to fight in the Middle East and also nationals coming back, so-called returning Jihadis, which is an extremely complex issue because they are trained to either withdraw their passports, share more information, apply additional controls on train stations or bus stations, or even on board of trains, but it’s an extremely difficult situation. You cannot track every single potential threat.
France’s Deadly Attack Will Not Be the Last
Video Transcript
Fred Burton: Hi, I’m Fred Burton and I’m here today with Adriano Bosoni, our European analyst, to discuss the terrorist attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris this morning. Adriano, I know you were just recently in Paris. What were some of your unique observations?
Adriano Bosoni: Hello Fred. When you visit France, Germany, the Netherlands and many other European countries, you notice a very complex political context. You see there is a big debate going on over the role of minorities. You see that there is the rise of nationalist parties that target foreigners in general but mostly minorities in particular. You see that there is a big debate over the restitution of border controls within Europe and how to deal with the crisis of asylum seekers and refugees arriving to European countries from the Mediterranean and the Middle East. So today’s attack happens in a context of a very very politically charged social and political environment in Europe.
Fred: And I also thought it was fascinating when you brought up this morning at our analyst meeting your observations on the French police checking trains. Would you like to share that with our audience?
Adriano: Yes, a couple of months ago, I traveled to Paris from Frankfurt and I was surprised to see that after crossing the French border, French policeman came into the train and started asking for people’s passports. And this makes sense because what we have seen in the past months is countries trying to come up with measures to deal with the problems of nationals going to fight in the Middle East and also nationals coming back, so-called returning Jihadis, which is an extremely complex issue because they are trained to either withdraw their passports, share more information, apply additional controls on train stations or bus stations, or even on board of trains, but it’s an extremely difficult situation. You cannot track every single potential threat.
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